City Council tables vote on solar plan

Updated 11:34 pm, Tuesday, February 18, 2014

BRIDGEPORT -- The city attorney on Tuesday tossed a legal life preserver to what critics hoped was the mayor's sinking solar project, dismissing one commission's vote to kill the plan as "advice."

Mark Anastasi, in a statement on a Parks Commission decision Monday to oppose leasing the closed landfill at Seaside Park to United Illuminating for a solar field, told Hearst Connecticut Media, "The administration has submitted the solar project to a host of boards and commissions for their non-binding advice and recommendations, including the Board of Parks Commissioners."

Ultimately the City Council tabled its own vote on UI's lease Tuesday night over the conflicting information.

Anastasi's comments mystified opponents of the solar plan who attended the council meeting. They argued that the city charter empowered the Parks Commission to make decisions about park land, and that therefore the UI proposal was dead.

"That's why they call us the `Park City,' " said ex-Council President Ernest Newton. "They set that committee up for a reason."

An angry Donald Greenberg, a Fairfield University politics professor, told the council and Mayor Bill Finch, who presides over council meetings, "You have to stop misleading, going around the rules, cheating and lying, making ridiculous statements from our town attorney to get done what you want to get done."

Meanwhile, Finch said of the project, "If we reject it, it will certainly tarnish the city's image."

The council delayed its vote on the lease to review the Parks Commission's decision, to grapple with whether the landfill is actually parkland, and to seek a formal legal opinion from Anastasi on the parks board's action.

"We know a lot of people have strong opinions, one way or another, but the council doesn't know yet," Council President Thomas McCarthy, D-133, said afterward.

Complicating the situation further is the fact that the solar panels were included in a parks master plan the city -- with the Parks Commission's input -- adopted a few years ago.

The Parks Commission's Monday meeting was unusually timed, given that it fell on the Presidents Day holiday. Attendees said mainly opponents of the solar panels showed up and commissioners debated the matter behind closed doors, kicking out a representative from Anastasi's office, which advises all city entities.

Parks Commission member Frank Mercaldi said in an interview Tuesday, "The board simply thought the parks belong to the people and that's how they should stay."

He said Anastasi's office told the commission the landfill is parkland.

But Finch Tuesday told the council and audience, "It's never been parkland. It likely never will."

Two UI executives sat quietly in the back of the council chambers and did not speak. Company spokesman Michael West said UI, which still needs a variety of state approvals if it gets a lease from Bridgeport, had little comment on the Parks Commission's vote and the debate surrounding it.

"The city of Bridgeport has a process," West said, "and were just anxiously awaiting the results of that process."